LMU basketball fully returns for first time since 2020
LOS ANGELES — Nearly 3,000 people cheered on the LMU basketball team back on February 29, 2020. That day was lively. The atmosphere that day, fueled by the unveiling of the Hank Gathers statue that proudly welcomes fans to campus from the Loyola Blvd and 80th Street entrance, was electric. Members of LMU’s 1990 Sweet 16 team came back to the bluff to pay tribute to their teammate.
The game itself had everything as well. The Lions shot 54.2 percent (25-for-48) from the field, the highest of conference play that year. The game was tied nine times and featured 14 lead changes. The crowd made a difference in LMU’s play.
After the game, the team left for the West Coast Conference Championships in Las Vegas. The tournament concluded and then in the world went into shutdown.
Now, fast forward three years later, and the doors to LMU basketball are fully reopened. The lights are bright (and new), the seating is ready (and new), and a new chapter of LMU basketball is ready to be written. Gersten Pavilion is once again fully open to fans and the community.
With third-year head coach Stan Johnson on the men’s side and second-year head coach Aarika Hughes on the women’s team, the two leaders of their programs have yet to truly experience what a game at LMU can really feel like. They have not seen the roar of the student section nor the families with kids excited to give Iggy the Lion a high wave. The pair also have not seen how a basketball crowd on their home court can help dictate the direction the game is going by the crowd’s energy.
The 2022-23 season is the time when LMU’s fans can truly return to games. The teams are ready for this. The spirit shop and the concession stand are reopened and revamped. The music and sounds of gameday are back filling the arena. The trophy case in the lobby that was completed following that 2020 season is now visible to the public and fully loaded with LMU history.
This is what college basketball is all about.
The best way to be a part of the Division I college basketball experience, without traveling too far away from your own backyard is to come out and experience LMU basketball games within Gersten Pavilion.
Tickets are on sale now at LMULions.com/Tickets and are available in a variety of packages. Each team will take the home court 16 times between November and February, and we would invite you and your family to be a part of what the teams are building.
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